The Duchess
by andromeda-smile
Summary: When Catherine, a young courtier of England, is drawn into a dangerous power play against the Cardinal Richelieu and the Duke of Buckingham, she is left friendless in a deathly struggle for control, and must battle perilous danger in order to survive.
1. Summary

**T H E**  
**D U C H E S S**

_**Power is dangerous—  
**__**but love is more dangerous still.**_

**C**atherine, the young Baroness de Ros of Helmsley, has lived a lavish life since birth. Her wealth, beauty, and reputation are without equal, and she is pursued by men and women alike, seeking both companionship and favor at the court of King James I. But Catherine herself wishes nothing more than to just disappear.

Despite her love among the common people and those of the nobility, her husband—the Duke of Buckingham—ignores her, leaving his young bride to fend for herself among the flatters and fools of court. Catherine finds herself alone in a vast ocean of deceit and betrayal, where the struggle for power is king and the webs of manipulation are queen. And what's more is Catherine suspects she, herself, has been made a pawn in a dangerous ploy by the enigmatic Countess de Winter.

With the threat of war looming, and the game board set for destruction, suddenly Catherine finds an unexpected, and dangerous, friend in d'Artagnan—a musketeer of King Louis XIII of France. He is an enemy in every light of Catherine's world; yet she can't help but feel an undeniable connection to him that is just as likely to destroy everything as it is to save it . . . and now she is faced with an impossible choice. With her life in the balance, will Catherine sacrifice everything for true love? Or will worlds collide?

_**Catherine is only a pawn in a game of power,  
**__**yet she dared to defy them.**_

My heart shattered. My world shattered.  
In that moment I knew that nothing would ever be as it was before.  
His eyes caught mine and as I ran, struggling to reach him before it was too late,  
the truth overwhelmed my body as it overwhelmed my world . . .  
We would not survive this.

And, yet, I could not help but fight against it.


	2. Introduction & Preface

_**Introduction**_

Where to begin . . . I suppose I should start by saying that this is a work of fiction. But although it is a work of fiction, the characters all hold seats of significant historical value; such as King Louis XIII, his queen, Anne of Austria, the Cardinal Richelieu, and the Duke of Buckingham. Each of these characters were people who actually lived in history and changed the very course of it. And the focus character of _this_ story, Catherine, is no different.

Katherine Manners, also sometimes referred to as Catherine, was among the wealthiest women of her time and the wife of the Duke of Buckingham. Yet relatively little is actually known about her. She is a woman who sits in the shadows of a time filled with political strife, war, and power struggle. And as I began to learn more about her, the more the imaginings of her life took purchase in my mind. What would she have been like? Would she have been strong and courageous, or sad and lonesome? And would she have sat idly back as men dictated over her, or might she have been more bold?

And so this story came to life. I put down the account of the events that transpired in _The Three Musketeers_ as I saw fit from her unique perspective. Please note that I have taken several liberties historically with the story to incorporate her, and humbly ask that any inaccuracies of Catherine's person, the time period, or the events taken place be ignored.

Lastly, it is my greatest hope that this story will provide you with a new and invigorating view of that time. I hope that you will come to care for Catherine as I have, and see that she was not just a shadow on the wall of time. But was in fact a woman in the truest sense, with a heart and mind of her own. Hopefully you will walk away understanding her world a little better. And that no perspective should be overlooked . . .

— andromeda

* * *

**T H E  
****D U C H E S S**

_**Y**ou think you know a story, but you only know how it ends._

_To get to the heart of a story, you have to go back to the beginning._

The Tudors

_**preface**_

_1627_

I have many reasons for beginning this chronicle.

Not least among them is spite, but I have a much more important cause for writing down here the events that led to my leaving. And that is love.

I would not speak of it with anyone else; they would only tell me that love is an illusion, that I was only a foolish girl with my head filled with foolish dreams. Yet I know that is not so. I have known love; a love so true it threatened to destroy me. And maybe I might have let it if that threat had only endangered me. But, then, maybe the danger would not have seemed so great if I was the only one at stake. It is my hope that writing this will help to quiet my grief over that stolen love.

What follows is my story. Mine and d'Artagnan's. When I have finished writing all that happened and how it came about, I plan to deliver my papers to Ser Daniel Harrenhal of London, whom I have had the rare pleasure of calling friend. He has promised to keep these records in safe keeping until my death and he sees fit to pass them onto a person worthy of reading their contents.

If our story seems a little extravagant, or something of a fantasy, let me assure that it is not. It is only the tale of my life and how I became unavoidably intertwined in a dangerous power struggle between nations and men. And if perhaps you believe I was a woman whose wickedness overwhelmed her nature, I urge you to withhold your judgment of me until you have finished this account and understand the exact circumstances in which we no longer found ourselves pawns, but players, in a game of thrones and shadows.

* * *

_The Three Musketeers © Alexandre Dumas . The Three Musketeers (2011) © Summit Entertainment_

_The Duchess © andromeda-smile_

_All rights reserved._

Please leave a review!


	3. One

_**the Earl of Rutland's Daughter**_

_**1**_

THOSE who knew me best would say I was of a spirited frame of mind, even as a child, and for years I had looked out windows onto the ports demurely, quietly longing to set sail on one of those grand ships. One grey spring morning in 1625, I found that once private wish being fulfilled, but not quite in the way as I had always imagined.

I sailed out of the port of the Tower of London on board the _Deliverance_ with sailors wearing black armbands and the colours flapping at half-mast. The morning had came overcast and cold, but happily not raining. A small comfort in most ways. The wind was freshening, gusting harshly, yet would be favorable at our sails. The sailors all looked up apprehensively, measuring the clouds and the wind's ferocity. But even a large squall would be nothing for our great galley. It was only a token warning of a storm brewing in the east; a storm that was soon to engulf my life.

My husband was a duke and a man of warfare. He was well versed in the political arenas and saw to much of England's foreign policies and military control. We were bound for France, to hear the plea of King Louis for peace. I sensed that this was not all, but I had not been told anything further. A venture of great importance, that was all my husband would say. I was not yet eighteen, and a woman, so I was neither asked nor consulted. They all assumed I was stupid. But I am far from it. I knew enough not to trust him, a lesson I had learned long ago. But this was different; I sensed his mistress's hand at work.

As I looked out at the grey sky, I felt in the air some powerful and unfamiliar feeling claw at me. It was neither friendly, nor daunting, but rather an unusual mix of both; a great change in the wind. And somehow I felt that there was a part of me that would never return to England. I didn't look back as others did, clinging to the last sight of some love left behind, or the tall Tower itself, threatening to cage me again. And I did not cling to my faith, praying that God would safely deliver us. My precious little love was far away and safe, my mother buried in the church, and my father playing amongst the other fools at court. I wondered if he watched our departure, as clumsy in his games as he had always been.

I hoped he was not there. I had only ever been a burden to him and didn't wish to dwell on his memory any more than need be. I just felt the icy wind on my face, it's blows whipping my hair about, tangling it, dampening from the wetness lingering in the air. And I felt that uneasy feeling grow inside of me.

We were well away from the harbor now and began our steep rise into the sky. The ground sank away beneath us, the once massive ships and buildings shrinking far bellow. The ship crept on slowly, rising as torchmen fueled its balloon with heat, the canvas straining against its bonds and netting, lifting us further toward the heavens like mortal angels returning home. There was nothing but emptiness to embrace us, emptiness and space. The pilot yelled directions, measuring the lift, and guiding the ship into the proper sailing position. France lay ahead of us, and there was nothing but the grace of god to stop our arrival now.

The thought, as we lifted into the air aboard our great galley, thrilled me in a way nothing before ever had.

Finally, we were of an appropriate height. The torchmen all doused their fires as the ship alined. Alice excused herself to go down below when the ground disappeared completely under the clouds, her skin gone unusually pale at the sight of our height. I asked Cora to see to her. She curtsied and scurried away, leaving me alone among the sailors on deck.

I had never know how much work needed to be done when a ship puts to sea, though I was mindful of it. But putting a ship to flight brought the deck to life. The sailors all set about their duties in a hurried fashion, working around me, and avoiding my eyes when they could. They left me alone out of respect for my good name, the prestige that dogged me like a haunting ghost. That was a good portion of it, but perhaps not all. Some were frightened of me, others simply leery or superstitious of my presence, and talk ran fast through the portside alehouses and inns. Perhaps they knew more than I did.

The order was called out to "make sail!" and the business around me intensified, the sailors working even harder. The sails fell and filled with the great gusting wind, and the ship heeled, keeling to the side before righting itself. The clouds swirled around us as the galley plunged through them with the wind eddying from the sails. The ship groaned eerily under me, protesting against the sway of its great weight. My hands gripped the rail tight, the knuckles white. As we began to steady a rain began to fall, blurring the space around us until nothing but the greyness engulfed us, threatening to steal our sight of land forever. All round the concepts of up and down disappeared, leaving only a vast emptiness behind, until I could neither see where we were going or from where we had come. The ship swayed against the wind with each gust. I was unused to a ship's motion in any light and, as she hefted in the wind, I staggered and nearly lost my balance when a strong hand caught my arm. I gaze up behind me into the dark eyes of my husband, George.

"Come, Catherine," he said, leading me away. "It's time you should go below. You are getting in the way of the men; they have enough to do without worrying over the possibility that you may fall overboard."

He escorted me below decks, giving a false smile and husbandly concern for the benefit of anyone who might have been watching. I understood the reason for his concern; if I'd have died much of his wealth and favor at court would diminish. Then not even the favor of the king could help him.

George delivered me safely into the hands of my maids, who immediately helped me out of my sodden dress and fussed over the sorry state of my dripping hair. Cora, whom dotted on me like a mother hen, believed that damp was at the root of almost all death. She brought me a small cup of broth to chase away the chill in my skin, but at the very smell of it my stomach suddenly sank, threatening to rebel against me.

"Please, Cora, take it away," I practically begged. Not even morning sickness had ever afflicted me so abruptly.

"You don't want to catch a chill, my lady,"she persisted.

My stomach gave a great lurch. I'd starve before I let myself be so undignified as to vomit when I could prevent it. I ordered the soup away.

Alice helped me into my bed, placing heated bricks around me. It was then that I noticed the cold tremble in my hands, my limbs, and then in my body. I was shivering. They took my clothes away to be replaced as I lay in my bed with the bricks tucked around my feet, fighting against sickness, and gazing out the windows. I felt miserable, yet as awful as it was I also felt that feeling again. Something was waiting for me where we were going, some great destiny.

Cora only laughed. "A destiny, my lady? I think you are more tired than you seemed." She was middle aged, yet pretty, made more so by her kind smile. In her youth she would have been quite a rare beauty. "Your destiny is to give the Duke a son. We'll give you time to rest for a while."

I lay in my bed for some time, thinking. Eventually I did get my sealegs about me, but I did not call for either Alice or Cora again. What Cora had said left me feeling weak and tired. I wanted nothing more than to just disappear into the sheets of my bed, never to resurface.

It is said that when one comes to a great crossroads in life we are often left to remember the past. And as I lay in my bed, gazing dejectedly out the windows, I did find myself remembering my life thus far.

* * *

_The Three Musketeers © Alexandre Dumas . The Three Musketeers (2011) © Summit Entertainment_

_The Duchess © andromeda-smile_

_All rights reserved._

Please leave a review!


	4. Two

_**2**_

I had never known my mother; she had died giving me life. Whether my father loved her or not remains a mystery to me, though I am inclined to believe that he did not. Not completely, at the very least. As the last of her life's blood seeped from her, I was handed off onto a wet nurse to be forgotten for a time, my father disappearing from our lives for more than a year. He returned with a new bride after that, who took over the running of the house. She ordered the help, saw to that the castle was presentable, catered to the number of guests that came and went from the grounds. What she didn't look after, the housekeeper, Madame Wilkes, did. Where we once lived in quiet and peaceful seclusion, our household now bustled with boisterous life.

My father's wife was Lady Cecilia. She will always be that to me. I never called her Mother, or my lady, or even Lady Manners. From the beginning she did not like me, and, in time, I learned to return her affections in kind. She was not unattractive per say; her face was long and slender, her eyes piercing in their gaze, but her face was also hard and cold as iron. She had been a widow, as my mother had been before her, when my father married her. I often wondered at his choice in quiet moments, but then it was plain to me from an early age that love held no part in their union. She was a wealthy woman, still of an appropriate age to bare children. More importantly, to birth him sons.

The majority of our household avoided me, lest they risk the scorn of their mistress. I was left for my nurse, Mary, to look after. She fed me, clothed me, made sure I was clean and groomed. She raised me as her own, and even took me to worship with her and her son amongst the Catholics; the church of my mother.

"She can hear you, Sweetling," she used to tell me when we would go to light candles. "Your momma can hear you when you need her to. She is with the angels now."

From that time on I often went to pray when I felt lost, or the empty craving for my mother's touch overwhelmed me.

Mary was a gentle soul, and a wise woman. As the years passed on she took to becoming my maid instead of my nurse. She taught me to read in my nursery when I was old enough, the way she had taught herself. We read what we could find; the Bible, a prayer book, tracts and sermons from the kind old priest from our church, as well as ballads and small literature that she chanced upon. As I grew more adept I searched the manor for more things to read, combing the rooms and my father's library. I took whatever caught my interest, reading to Mary about myths and legends of the Greeks and Romans, philosophy, astrology—works my family would not have approved of; I especially loved the stories of Atalanta. Adventure and discovery. That was the life I wanted.

The expression Mary gave to me then would haunt me for many years. Her eyes filled with a knowing sorrow and sympathy; those were things far beyond my reach, never to be attained. I had been born a girl.

She quickly rushed to assuage my disappointment. One day I would marry a high lord, keep his house and bare his children, and see them off on their own adventures. I was better off spending my time learning the other great arts so that one day I would attract the attention of the one I wanted, not the one pushed at me. Just like Atalanta.

I read on defiantly, holding my book so she could no longer see me. My face had crumpled into a mask of misery, the tears threatening to spill over. I had never realized before that moment that having been born female would be such a grievous disability. _Perhaps Mary is wrong,_ I thought to myself. She was only a servant, not the highborn daughter of a wealthy man. She couldn't possibly tell me what I could and could not become.

I continued on as I had before, wandering the house as I pleased, always careful to avoid the Lady Cecilia or her ill-tempered housekeeper, Madam Wilkes. My father was often away on business, always trying to reach higher than his grasp had been before, and his lady was a woman bread of high society who constantly found herself away, floating from one party to the next in order to flaunt her status and remain close to the freshest gossip. I seemed to be there as an afterthought, a pretty thing to be shone to guests, an addition more often bullied than loved. And frequently ignored.

We lived in a castle in Lincolnshire called Belvoir, a stone's throw away from the villages of Redmile, Knipton, and several others. Our home was old; it wasn't large in the way of most castles, but it had been in the possession of my family for more than a hundred years and remained the seat of the Barons de Ros ever after my father and I. In rare moments when I was able to find time alone with my father, he would tell me of the grand legacy that was our family's name and how we would make it greater. This castle was a sign of that greatness. It sat at the crest of a great hill overlooking the forest and meadows. And though it was remote, we did not lack for company. My father and Lady Cecilia's ambitions brought visitors from near and far, business men and courtiers too curious to stay away. At one time they even had the honor of hosting the king, himself. To me, it was a wild playground unequal to anything else I had ever known.

My father did not spend all of his time at Belvoir. At least part of every year he was in London, playing at court. I knew that his trips were important; his favor with King James was largely what paid for our extravagant life here, but as I grew older, I began to resent his absence. When he did return to us, I would scold him and pretend to be angrier than I was, even though he brought me presents to carry my favor. A horse—which died—and a dog that Gage turned mean. A dead horse and a foul-tempered dog were no excuse for an absent father. When he was away, I would wander into his study late in the night and curl up in his chair. The room was large and dark, like all the others, and in his absence it seemed even emptier than before.

When he was at home, the candles would all be lit, the fire put to a blaze, and his study would come into being again, breathing life back into the castle. It became my favorite place in the world. It was filled with the most wonderful things from his travels, or that had been given to him as gifts from the various people who came to visit him. A beautiful ornament of polished white marble, silver, and glittering jewels in the shapes of spiders sat on one of the taller shelves of the bookcase, brought all the way from Prussia. And beside it sat a box of lustrous black wood inlaid with gold leaf, which he said contained an old book hidden within its confines, brought with him from Vatican City in Rome. And the room held an assortment of other wonderful objects from so many far away places. A great map drawn and painted by a Danish mapmaker of high renown, carved elephants tusks from across the Mediterranean, seashells from Italian shores, cups of silver from Germany.

Among my favorite things of his was a globe of dark wood, expertly crafted in Spain, which sat in the corner of the room. Across its face, in lines of black and red, were the countries of seven continents painted with delicate hands. Sometimes we would stand together, spinning the globe before stopping it with both hands, tracing the countries with our fingers as we told off the names, like blind men reading a face. He was proud of the things he had done, proud of his curiosities. He liked to point out the distant lands from which his treasures had come. To me, they became as familiar and ordinary as pewter or the pottery of other homes.

My father had come from an insignificant noble family but, being venturesome in his youth, and ambitious besides, he and his brothers had set out to travel across Europe and even spent time as rebels among our own countrymen. He had been lucky to walk away with his life. Then, in a miraculous twist of fate, he had somehow found himself in the favor of the king, rather than a head on a spike.

I loved to hear the tales of his life before my birth, and he often loved to tell them. I would sit on his knee as he held me, my head resting against his shoulder, and take comfort in his warmth, his voice, and the sound of his heartbeat so close to my own. He would tell me of the people he had met, the places he had been, and the things he had seen.

My favorite stories were of his sword. It was a fine piece of steel, a rapier expertly crafted by a great forger. The hilt was gilded in a polished white gold, emblazoned with the fluer de lis in a sparkle of glittering gems, and the pommel was laid with silver thread and velvet of dark blue. I never saw him use it, never saw him even lift it from its casing, but he claimed that it had once belonged to a great musketeer of France. He called it _Destin._

_~o~_

Besides his life at court, my father also had a number of other responsibilities bestowed on him by the crown. He held title as Knight of the Bathe, Earl of Rutland and Lord-lieutenant of Lincolnshire, and later even became the constable of Nottingham Castle and a keeper of Sherwood Forest. Though he only spent part of the year at court, he was more often away on business than at home.

Mary taught me to read, but I learned to letter and number in my father's study. My copy books were the invoices and accounts, logs and bills of lading he used in his daily business. I liked to sit at his desk, cramped by the scatterings of paper that crowded it. I felt closer to him then; the room smelled of him, and it were as though a small part of him had been left behind.

Laboriously copying out lists of names and goods, balancing them against sums of money, helped to distract my mind from his absence. I'd do it for mornings together, covering myself in ink and pages and pages in words and figures. Finally, Mary discovered what it was I had been up to. She shooed me from the room, and chased me out to play elsewhere.

I would run down to the kitchens, begging Gage for some of the sweets that he had made that day or some honeybread, then I would be off to find William.

I had always known William. From my first memory we had been together. His mother was my Mary, and there had never been a time when he was not there with me. Mary had raised me as one of her own until I was three or four, when my father had plucked me from her arms to raise separate from her son, the way one might pluck a puppy from a litter. As a young child, he was an indulgent parent—some might say too indulgent—and I remember only kindness from him; it was not until much later in my life that I would learn different. I was left to run wild across Belvoir, spending most of my time getting into mischief with the other children of the castle and neighboring villages.

I did not want for playmates. The castle, neighboring fields, and trafficking roads attracted children from all around. I led them on with my pockets full of sugary sweets and cakes twisted up in paper. "Spice," they called it. "Got any spice, Cathy?" We made playthings out of whatever we could find: swarming through the field, playing king-of-the-hill, making seesaws with planks, rolling barrel hoops along with sticks, climbing trees, and swinging from the branches.

William was our leader, and his word was law. I was the mate to his captain, and together we led a marauding crew across the countryside.

My mind was made up. Even then. I knew what I would do.

My father had no plans for me, other than that I was to be married. It was in this that I would prove most helpful. My father needn't bother himself with the trouble of finding me a groom; I was a smart girl, capable of choosing for myself. William was destine to do great things, just as his father had in serving the king, and when he was bound off on his own adventures, I would follow as his wife. Had we not already sworn a solemn oath to each other? Pricking our palms and bleeding them together? He was bound for greatness, and so I would go with him.

I was certain of this. William was as good a choice as any—the best choice—and I wasn't one to change my mind easily. Why would I? It did not occur to me that we would not always be together. His life would always be mine, too.

We lived for each day, and each day was similar to the one before. That was our life, and it was a good one. We thought it would always be that way, until we arrived at the future we saw for ourselves. How were we to know the future was to be so much darker than all that.

* * *

_The Three Musketeers © Alexandre Dumas . The Three Musketeers (2011) © Summit Entertainment_

_The Duchess © andromeda-smile_

_All rights reserved._

Please leave a review!


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